5 Speaking Mistakes to AVOID in English

Hi, I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com.  

Do you make these five common speaking  mistakes? Let's talk about it.  

Learning English is hard. There's so much  to remember. But if you remind yourself  

that as long as you're practicing, you are  learning, you're going in the right direction.  

Before we get started, I have a little  disclaimer, making mistakes is a completely  

normal part of learning anything new. It could  be a language. It could be any other skill.  

I want you to overall be nice to yourself. When  you make a mistake, if you can't remember a word,  

if you say something incorrectly and people  can't understand you, you take a deep breath. 

Because you know what? You are getting out  of your comfort zone. You are taking a risk  

and you are learning something new.  Congratulations! That is a wonderful thing  

to do. At the same time, I understand that you  want to improve your English and you want to avoid  

common mistakes. Today, we're going to go over  five common speaking mistakes. But be careful,  

one of them is a little a bit of a trick.  Well, like always, I have created a free  

PDF worksheet with all of today's common  mistakes and the solutions so that you don't  

make these mistakes and you can feel confident  when you speak. You can click on the link in the  

description to download that free PDF today. Are you ready to get started? Let's follow  

this lovely Maya Angelou quote that says, "Do  the best that you can until you know better.  

Then, when you know better, do better."  Well, let's get started. Mistake number one,  

lose or loose. And believe it or not, even  native English speakers make this mistake. Loose.  

Loose. That shirt is too loose. It doesn't  fit. Lose. Lose. Don't lose your phone when  

you're at the baseball game. Can you say these  two challenge sentences with me? My son has a  

loose tooth. I hope he doesn't lose it while he's  eating. If your shoe is loose, you might lose it.  

Now, I have a little quiz before  we go to common mistake number two. 

What should be the best word for this sentence?  I'll let you borrow my favorite shirt, but don't  

it. Don't. Which one's correct? Three, two, one.  I'll let you borrow my favorite shirt, but don't  

lose it. Don't lose it. Common speaking mistake  number two, yesterday night, last night.  

Only one of these is correct. Can you guess which  one it is? I stayed up too late last night and now  

I'm exhausted. Yes, people will understand you if  you say, "I stayed up too late yesterday night,"  

but it's not correct. And if you want to level up  your speaking skills, you should say last night.  

Can you fill in the end of this question? What did you do?  

Three, two, one. Well, as you know, there's only  one correct answer. What did you do last night?  

Let me know in the comments. Remember, remind.  Ugh, these words are so similar, but there is one  

grammatical difference between these words  that you need to know so that you can use  

them correctly. Remember Vanessa's English lesson  last week? Ah, no, will you remind me what it was?  

Let's take a look at both of these sentences. The  first one is, remember Vanessa's lesson last week?  

We just have the word remember, and it's  not attached to anything. But take a look  

at the second one, remind me what it was. When we use the word remind, we always  

use a pronoun afterwards. Remind me. Will you  remind him about his homework? Will you remind  

them not to be late? Oh, can you please remind  me what the homework is? We almost always use  

the word remind when we're trying to help someone  out. It is incorrect to say, can you remember me  

what the homework is? That is not correct. Let's  do a little test. Can you choose the correct words  

in these sentences? Do you when the project is  due? Think about it for three seconds. Three, two,  

one. Do you remember when the project is  due? Do you see any other word after that? 

There's no pronoun after that. Instead, it's  just the project. Do you remember when the  

project is due? What about this sentence,  me to buy milk when I go to the store later.  

You're asking someone to help you with  something. Three, two, one. Remind me  

to buy milk when I go to the store later. I might  forget. Common speaking mistake number four,  

tell and say. Oh, these are also two  very tricky words, but I have a little  

key way that you can remember which one to use  at which time. Let's take a look at these two  

sentences. What did he tell me? What did he  say to me? Oh, do you notice something here? 

After each of these words, we have a little  phrase. What did he tell me? Well, we only have  

that pronoun, me. What about the next question?  What did he say to me? Aha! Here we have it.  

With the word say, we always need to if there is  a pronoun. What did he say to me? You cannot say,  

what did he say me? This is incorrect. Instead,  you should say, what did he say to me? Or you  

can say, what did he tell me? Let's take  a little quiz. What did your boss to you  

when you asked for a raise? I'll give you  three seconds to think. Is it say or tell?  

What did your boss to you when you  asked for a raise? Three, two, one. 

What did your boss say to you when you asked for  a raise? Did you see the word to after this? Yes,  

that's your key that it should be say.  All right, let's look at another one.  

Me the truth, does this outfit look okay? It's  a trick question. Let's go over it one more time  

and I'll give you three seconds to think of the  correct answer. Me the truth, does this outfit  

look okay? Three, two, one. Tell me the truth,  does this outfit look okay? After the word tell,  

there is not the word to, so you know we need to  use tell. Tell me the truth, does this outfit look  

okay? All right, let's go to our final common  speaking mistake that might be a little trick. 

There is. There are. There's three birds outside  my window right now. Oh, this is technically a  

mistake. There is three birds. Birds is plural.  There is an S. There are three of them. Why  

did I say there is three birds? Well, in common  spoken English, we often make this a contraction,  

there's, and it doesn't matter what comes next.  We could say, there's a bird outside my window,  

or there's three birds outside my window.  And even though the verb is singular,  

this is a mistake that really it doesn't  matter. Native English speakers make this  

mistake all the time and no one cares. No  one even really knows that it's a mistake. 

Technically, it is. But if you hear this and  you think, wait, that's not right. Why did  

they say that? You know what? Sometimes native  English speakers allow mistakes, and this is  

one of them. But just a little note. If you are  writing formally, if you're writing academically,  

you can say there are three birds outside my  window. You can use the correct version. If you're  

taking an exam, don't put the conversational  incorrect phrase. Don't blame me for that.  

Instead, you should use the technical  grammatically correct expression. But just to  

let you know, you can forget about this mistake.  In fact, you can even use it when you speak.  

Well, congratulations on leveling up your English. I hope now you can avoid these five common  

speaking mistakes and learned a little bit more  about English. Now, I have a question for you.  

I want to know in your country, what happens when  a child loses a loose tooth? Here in the US, it's  

pretty common that a child will put that tooth  under their pillow. And in the morning, magically,  

the tooth fairy will give them some money. It  might be a dollar. It might be a quarter. It might  

be more if you're really lucky, but this is a  common cultural practice. I want you to use these  

two tricky words. What do you remember from your  childhood? Let me know in the comments, and don't  

forget to download the free PDF for this lesson. This is an important one, so that you don't make  

these mistakes when you're speaking. You can get  all of the mistakes, all of the sample sentences,  

how to correct it, and you can answer Vanessa's  challenge question so that you never forget  

what you've learned. There's a link in the  description to download the free PDF today.  

Well, thanks so much for learning English with  me and I'll see you again next Friday for a new  

lesson here on my YouTube channel. Bye! The next step is to download the free  

PDF worksheet for this lesson. With this  free PDF, you will master today's lesson  

and never forget what you have learned. You  can be a confident English speaker. Don't  

forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel  for a free English lesson every Friday. Bye!